Ice and Ember Katara x Zuko
by RavenHeart777
Summary: a collection of Zutara drabbles. Full summary inside.
1. Dancing

_This is the first in a series of drabbles, one shots, and such. All KataraXZuko, and all T rating or under. please read and review!! and be sure to tell me what you think. I'll try to update atleast once a week, so keep you eyes open. each individual story will have it's own rating attached with warnings included there. well, that's about it. Ciao! Raven Heart_

_**PS: I don't own anyone. Ownership is an illusion.**  
_

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Rating: K+

Warnings: none

Style: Fluff

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Dancing

Katara and Zuko faced each other in the halls of the palace of the fire nation. She was surrounded by water, and he could pull fire from the very air. Tension, pride, silence; the calm before the storm.

Zuko lunged forward, hurling a ball of flames at the Water Bender. She deflected it with a wall of water, before darting forward, displaying just why she was called a Master Bender. Water formed intricate shapes in the air around them, lashing out at Zuko, trying to destroy his root. Fire danced in space between them, turning water to steam and being extinguished by it.

Soon they were enveloped by a cloud of steam and smoke, and a tiny voice in the back of Zuko's mind told him that uncle would be furious if all the vapor damaged the delicate paper screens in this room, which the Dragon of the West used as a tea room. The rest of him kept moving. The prince and the peasant whirled through the room sometimes only a hairs breath away, before spinning away again only to meet in a new and different way in another moment.

Then, Katara grabbed Zuko's shoulder with her right hand as he took hold of her waist in his left hand, spun her around, so that he was leaning over her, dipping her, and holding his right fist, flaming, back and above, ready to attack. But she was not done yet, and he soon realized that all of the water still liquid in the room had converged on them, ready to drop on top of him at her whim.

"Stalemate again?" he panted with a hint of a smirk in his voice.

"Yes." She sighed with a mischievous smile. They still had not moved.

She exhaled, and all the water she had been holding froze solid. As he extinguished his hand she reached up and pressed her lips into his, wrapping both of her arms around his neck, as he reached around and held the back of her neck with his right hand. When they broke apart she breathed, "You always were a fabulous dancer."

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_tell me what you thought!! R.H_. 


	2. We All Need A Big Strong Man

_This story is about Zuko being overly protective and mildly (not like he's cruel or anything) sexist with his girlfriend, Katara. He really does mean well, he just... well, you'll see. I have to say that I love the way that this turned out!! The beginning and end are just dialogue, but the rest of it is told from Katara's POV, sort of like a diary entry, or something that she is thinking. R+R please!!_

**_PS: I DON'T OWN ANYONE. BUT I WILL ACCEPT JOHNNY DEPP AS A GIFT._**

_just putting it out there._**_  
_**

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Rating: T (for semi-questionable subject matter. nothing explicit, buuuuut, better safe than sorry)

Warnings: Make out reference, some big words.

Style: Humor/Cute.

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We All Need A Big, Strong, Man

"No, really Zuko, I can carry -"

"Nonsense. It's much too heavy. Why don't you go help, erm, Aang with his, uh, glider?"

ooOORHOOoo

He's driving me insane. I love him to death, but I swear to all the spirits, I will kill him…. Ever sense I agreed to be his girlfriend I have been torn between two radically different impulses when it came to Zuko; Kiss him, or Kill him.

Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy… he's just… well, he's used to the fragile, dainty, useless girls of the Fire Nation and their apparent lack of the ability to do anything for themselves.

Like just now. That thing that I was carrying; that horribly heavy parcel that I could not have possibly moved of my own volition with out causing myself serious physical harm? It was a sleeping bag. And when we were setting up camp he also deemed the firewood, the cauldron, and the _Water _dangerously heavy for me. The WATER!! Helloo? I am a Water Bender!! A Master Water Bender!! A tidal wave isn't too heavy for me! Why should two measly buckets be?!

And then; most unforgivable of all; was the time that he insisted that he escort me when I went to gather food in the woods so that I didn't get attacked by wild animals, _and he MENT it!! _I was thinking _oh, clever Zuko… now we can make out without the prying eyes of the entire camp on us…_ but did he make even the tiniest sexual offer? Nope. The most sex-starved human being, or anything else for that matter, on the planet could not have translated one of his glances, statements, or usage of body language at any time during our forty-five minute hike as even a "_kiss me". _I could have killed him.

In fact, he has missed out on several prime make out opportunities when they could have gone down as some of the most gratifying experiences of his life. Like the time that he offered to guard one of the rare hot springs that we found while I was bathing, and not once, NOT ONCE, despite all my hints and flirts and barely concealed suggestions did he venture anywhere near enough to the spring to even look at me. I know. I asked Toph afterwards, because she had been 'keeping watch' for me, and she said that his vibrations had never gotten within ten yards of the edge of the woods surrounding the clearing, and they were too thick to see through there, I checked.

ooOORHOOoo

"AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHH"

"What happened?"

"Who screamed?!"

"ZUKO!? Zuko, are you okay?! Are you hurt?"

"SPIDERFLYYYY!! SPIDERFLY IN MY SHOE!!! GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUUUUUUUT!!!"

"…."

"AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

"IT WAS NOT FUNNY KATARA!!"

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_For the record, during the little "…." Part Katara picks the spiderfly out of Zuko's shoe and kills it, in total silence and the whole gang is staring at Zuko with this really weird look on their faces. Katara is the only one who laughs; (in the story, after Zuko's last line they all crack up, not including Zuko.)_

_ I looooooove reviews!! they are like beautiful flowers growing from the sewage of life!! _

_ -- Raven Heart  
_


	3. Beyond Freaked

_this story is about Sokka finding out some things that he would rather not know. (heheheh)_

_**PS: I DON'T OWN ANYONE, BUT I AM STILL ACCEPTING JOHNNY DEPP.**  
_

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rating: K+

warnings: some big words and dry humor, but nothing other than that.

style: humor/cute

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Beyond Freaked

Sokka was, by nature, not a very calm person. He just didn't take surprises, or really, anything that fate didn't swing in his favor, well. Back at the South Pole, he was known for frantically running about looking for the invading 'Fire Nation spies' (who were sent to invade our Tribe and weaken us by depleting our food supply) whenever it was discovered that the supply of seal-jerky was running a little low, or, (on one memorable occasion) rousing the entire village late at night, herding us all deep into an ice cave and sealing us in for six hours because some snow had "suspiciously" fallen outside his tent. No, Sokka was not known for his calm and collected nature in the face of a puddle in the middle of the path, let alone a real shock. Screaming and ranting were part and parcel, and the more shocked, angry, disturbed, or freaked out Sokka got; the louder he became. That was why, when he returned to the camp to find Zuko and I locked together at the lips I found his utterly silent staring more disconcerting than the screams and death-threats would have been, and was compelled to ask him "Sokka? Are you okay?"

I really felt kind of sorry for poor Sokka; after all, he spent so long collecting all those berries and saving them neatly in that little bag… just to have them all spill out when he hit the ground

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_grins sheepishly oh, i'm so sorry that it took so long for me to get back to this, and that the story that i FINALLY do upload is so sucky and short!! i was seriously just reading and then this just came to me and so i wrote it and i thought that it was funny so i just decided to upload it and give you guys something to read. i really am horrible at coming up with stuff to write, but if anyone wants to give me ideas than i may have things to upload more frequently!! - but seriously, i'm going to work harder on updating more frequently._

_i love reviews!!! they bring meaning to my otherwise pitiful and listless existence._

_ciao! Raven Heart  
_


	4. Rule of Law

_this story is what might turn out to being a fully fledged multi chapter thing. this would be like a preface or something. i'm not really sure where this came from... i just started writing and the result is plane to see. i do really like how this turned out. but just so you know, it's not really specific. there is no particular narrator and no point of view, this is just a story. i apologize if it's a little rough, i didn't spend to much time on this. R+R please!!!!_

_**PS: I DO NOT OWN ANYONE... I DO OWN THINGS... BUT NO PEOPLE. (STILL NO JOHNNY DEPP, GET WITH THE PROGRAM HERE PEOPLE)**_

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rating: K+

warnings: some abstract ideas, may be a little hard to follow

style: legend

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Rules were made to be broken. This is a commonly accepted fact. Rules were created for the sole purpose of finding exceptions to them, for tweaking them, for bending them. Laws, however, were made to be followed. Laws are final, laws are absolute, laws are set in stone. The laws of the state, the laws of life, and perhaps most especially, the Laws of Nature. Gravity separates the heavy from the light, heavy and dense always sinks, stone is solid. The laws of nature and physics cannot be broken; fish swim, birds fly, water cannot be set on fire.

But Spirits made the laws.

And the Spirits made a loophole.

The Avatar. The Four Elements, violently different and opposing in nature contained in perfect harmony in one human. The Avatar is the exception to every rule and law in the universe. But this leaves us with a paradox. Laws cannot be broken, and yet the Avatar does so simply by existing. And along with this paradox comes another. The Avatar, who was meant to bring balance to the world of men, became a threat to the natural world because by existing he or she broke the Laws threw the entire world out of balance. And so, Legend tells us, the Spirits gave us their last gift. In the days when the Spirits still walked among the leaves and creatures of the physical world they spoke of a new law, a law that broke all the others. A law that was the ultimate balance. A law that had no loopholes because it itself was a loophole; the big loophole, a loophole carved into every law that there was. This one law broke all the others and in doing so, made them unbreakable. Pain turned to beauty, anger turned to joy, sadness became happiness, and hate became love, and all with one simple, short, easy, iron bound law: OPPOSITES ATTRACT.

Over time the Spirits left the physical world for their own plane, leaving us their teachings and rules and laws. As the millennia passed the iron bound law of Opposites dwindled from law to rule to belief to saying until it was little more than a legend. But in that legend was a prophecy that would one day alter the course of history.

It spoke of the sky aflame over raging armies of all races. It spoke of tyranny and oppression. It spoke of pain and suffering and endurance. It spoke of a master and a prince. It spoke of love and hate. It spoke of family and allies. It spoke of treachery and lies. It spoke of burning water and icy fire. It spoke of the end of all laws and the dawning of a new age.

And, although no one would realize it until years after they were dead and buried, it spoke of Katara and Zuko.

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_hey, look, she updated and it didn't take forever and a half! what a concept!! please tell me what you think.__ do you think i did a good job?__ would you like to see this become a full story? do you think i would be able to focus on a full story when i can barely keep up with my pathetic little drabbles collection?_ _lol! i LOVE reviews! they are like small pieces of sunshine scattered upon the raw sewage that is my existance. XD_

_ciao - - - Raven Heart  
_


	5. Facing your Fears

i kept going back and forth on weather or not i wanted to make this a separate one-shot type thing, but i decided that i might as well continue with my drabble series.

so, setting this one up... eh, i don't know... i guess it's just a mildly angsty romance type thing.

oh, one more thing and this is important: SLIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD!!! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE CHEATED AND WATCHED ALL THE EPISODES THROUGH THE DAY OF BLACK SUN. it's not really anything major, but i figured that i'd just warn you so you don't freak out at me.

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i don't own avatar. if i did Katara and Zuko would kick every one of their former love interests in the face and then make out all over the four nations. 

so meh.

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He had always feared Water. 

Not because he didn't think that it was beautiful, or because he thought that it was weak; oh no. Quite the opposite.

He feared water because he thought that it was too powerful.

His worst fear was drowning.

As a young child he had fallen into the pond in his mother's garden. The water had been everywhere. In his eyes and in his ears and in his mouth. All he could hear was a rushing and all he could see was darkness and bubbles. Dark, suffocating, and cold. He had screamed and couldn't even hear himself over the rushing, pressing silence that pervaded this murky world.

It had seemed to last an eternity before strong hands pulled him roughly from the water's cold embrace.

For weeks he would not go anywhere near water.

He refused to bathe, screamed when water was given to him at dinner, and would wake up howling in the middle of the night from dreams of cold, wet, darkness.

After a long time he began to go back to his normal life.

He bathed.

He drank.

He dreamed of normal things.

When he was banished and spent years on a ship, he got even more used to water.

He learned to swim and even enjoyed it sometimes.

But he never forgot his fear.

)rh(

She had always feared fire.

Everyone knew that fire was the enemy.

Fire was dangerous.

It hurt you.

Fire had killed her mother.

She could not and would not forget her mother's final screams.

The solders had arrived as they always did, amid a cloud of black snow. Oh how her mother had hated those faceless monsters that killed and stole without reservation. Her mother had seen them destroy her home. Her mother had seen them win too many times. So when the solders had pushed her aside to take her house, Her mother had fought for her and her family.

Three Fire Benders against one lone woman of the Water Tribes armed only with a club she barely knew how to use… it wasn't much of a fight.

Memories of her mother's horribly burned corpse would haunt her forever.

Every night for weeks she nearly froze, for she refused to go anywhere near fire. She didn't want to feel its warmth, to hear its roar, to see its glow; she lived as one with the ice and snow and moon.

Eventually she had to go near the fires, to face the sun, to begin to live again… but she never forgot the raw power of the flames; she never completely trusted them again.

Until…

The attraction that they had both been fighting had been harder and harder to ignore as the days to the final assault on the Fire Nation drew closer. But now, as they stood watching the moon rise at the Western Air Temple on the eve of the invasion that they had been planning for so long, it suddenly became impossible.

"You know," he said, as the huge silver orb rose above the horizon, bathing the world in it's beautiful glittering light, "this could easily be the last night we get to do this..."

He could tell by the way she stiffened and tensed that she knew exactly what he meant.

"You shouldn't talk like that," she replied in a voice slightly higher than her normal one "of course we'll do this again. We'll win. We have to."

"But-"

"NO!" She screamed and whorled to face him as he turned to her

Their eyes locked.

Her eyes, so blue, so deep, so powerful… just like water…

His eyes, so blazing, so raw, so dangerous… just like fire…

They fought it, but gravity is one force in the universe that will always prevail, and they found themselves drawn irresistibly toward each other.

Their lips met.

He drowned.

She burned.

And neither ever wanted it to stop.

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oh the marvelous wonders of the smexy Zutara make-out scenes.

gotta love it.

pleeeeeeease review!!!


	6. Grief

_hi you guys._

_ i'd like to appologise in advance for any bad spelling or grammar mistakes or if this thing just plain sucks. i'm not quite myself today._

_there's a whole story behind this one, so sit back, relax and enjoy it. _

_a few years ago my best friend's family, who i've known sense i was six, wanted to get another dog. my aunt is a labrador breeder, and she had a litter of puppies. i put them in touch with my aunt, and then i fought like hell, because there was only one puppy left that hadn't been sold. eventually they got the puppy and named her Jasmine. _

_ yesterday, the phone company was doing something with the wires in everyone's back yard. i don't know what, something about the internet. when they were messing around in my friend's backyard, they left the gate open and Jasmine and her other dog, Casey got out. later that night they found Jasmine on the side of a busy road. she'd been hit by a car. Jasmine is dead._

_ when i found out, my reaction was similar to Katara's in the story. i hate stories that say stuff like, "and the tears clung to her eyelashes studding her eyes with a thousand diamonds, blah blah blah..." no. no, grief is not like that. grief is messy. _

_and that's what i was trying to get across here. _

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Grief is messy. 

In the fire nation, messy things were never tolerated for any length of time.

Every thing in the fire nation was always graceful and dainty and clean.

To be other wise was a sign of deplorable dishonor.

Therefore…

You did not grieve.

When Zuko's grandfather died and his mother vanished in the same night, he did not grieve. He knew that if he did he would be labeled as weak.

So he bottled it all up and stored it on some dusty shelf in the back of his mind.

Hoping he would never really have to deal with it.

He had never known anyone to openly grieve. Until the day a saber-toothed moose lion killed Katara's pet kola-sheep.

He had seen people cry before, but always it was delicate, pretty, and quickly stifled.

He was totally unprepared for Katara's howling sobs and swollen blood-shot eyes.

He was astounded by the way she collapsed wailing incoherently as her entire face seemed to puff up.

As he looked at the girl whom grief had transformed from a strong, beautiful bender into a sobbing puffy wreck, Zuko suffered an epiphany.

Grief is good.

Yes it is messy and painful and unpleasant and heart wrenching to watch as well as experience and no one can really do it gracefully,

But it is natural and healthy and normal and right.

It is the right thing to do when someone or something close to you dies; hell, when anyone dies is ok to grieve. Grief is not weakness. Grief is strength.

Now, I say that Zuko _suffered_ this epiphany because at the moment this realization struck him he suddenly re-discovered that dusty bottle of pent up feelings that he had been keeping inside him for more than four years now.

And as he noticed it, for perhaps the first time, it shattered.

Years later, looking back on all of it he had to admit that it was fairly amusing… but when he was flat on his face screaming with tears pouring out of his good eye and beating the ground with his fists, he did not think that it was very funny.

No matter what Toph said to the contrary.


	7. Silly Predicaments

_this came to me in a flash of caffeine induced brilliance. i was doing my homework at like 12am, when for no apparent reason, it hit me. zuko is always described as getting physically warmer when he gets turned on. so my mind followed this thought to it's logical conclusion. the result is displayed below. XD_

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rating: T

warnings: semi-graphic make-out

style: humor

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This, Zuko decided, was the dumbest thing to ever happen to him. Ever. And in his sixteen years, a lot of dumb things had happened to him. That time when he had tried to 'save' Mai and ended up knocking them both into the fountain. The time he had fallen on his ass in front of his grandfather. The toad. But this one took the cake. This was the straw that broke the Llama-camel's back. This was the dumb queen mother of all dumb things. And it had all started out so marvelously too.

He had met up with Katara in one of the empty rooms of the temple and they had had one of their heart to heart's. She really was fabulous to talk to, so understanding and kind and passionate. Of course he had wanted to kiss her, it was only natural. She was beautiful, they were sitting close together, bearing their souls, and so a quick kiss on the cheek seemed warranted. How was he to have known that she would respond in such a positive way? When she pressed her lips to his and sucked on his bottom lip like that of course he had gone along with it. He was, after all, a teenage boy. He could not be expected to exercise much restraint in these areas. Especially not when the person he was exploring those areas with was not only gorgeous, but very good at kissing. So he thought that it was only natural for him to have put one hand behind her neck and support her head while the other went behind the small of her back, pulling her closer. And when he had licked her lips and she parted them, of course he had slipped his tongue into her mouth and lowered her down so that she was laying on the floor and he was half on top of her; it had seemed like the right thing to do. When she had pushed her hands up his shirt and began trailing her fingernails lightly down his sides how could he not be expected to loose it a little? It was only natural. And who could blame him when he had moved from her mouth to her jaw to her neck and began to suck and nip at the flesh he found there. And who could blame him for not noticing that her smooth, taught skin was growing cooler by the second? He was a little preoccupied. And when she had started moaning his name like that who could blame him for picking up the pace a little and actually licking the mocha skin of her neck.

He had at least learned a lot today, Zuko decided. First, it was never a good idea to forget that benders tend to loose control when they get excited. Second, you should really practice bending with all parts of your body so that you are never caught in ridiculous situations having to learn how to Fire Bend with a random appendage at an inconvenient time. And, third, it is very hard to concentrate on anything when your tongue is frozen to the neck of a Water Bender and that Water Bender happens to be laughing so much that she can't focus long enough to un-freeze you and you suddenly realize that you don't know how to Fire Bend with your tongue and that you are in a very silly predicament.

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_lols_

_ review or i will cry for ten days and nights without ceasing and then you will all drown in my tears. but you'll still feel really bad about it cause, you know, they're my tears._

_but reviewers get cookies!!_

_yay cookies!! _


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